Loving Lies (11 page)

She grimaced at the pain that surged through her. The knowledge that another woman had claimed him had nearly destroyed her when she found out. That had been the first night she had slept with Jazz. Crying out Slade's name, holding onto another man as he whispered the right words and let her pretend, if only for a little while, that she hadn't been a fool, that she hadn't lost the only person she knew she would ever truly love.

She remembered her shame when she awoke the next morning. How she cringed away from him, her stomach clenching as bile rose to her throat.

It's okay, sweet pea.
It's just me and you. Friends. Use me, Jessie, there's no shame in it when no
lies are whispered. You don't love me. I don't love you. Let me make this easier.

She had been so weak. Too weak. Over the years she and Jazz had fallen into a rut of sorts. When the loneliness was too much to bear, he was there. And he never cared that it was Slade she craved. That even in her sleep, she still called out to him.

She consoled herself that it had been over a year since she had lain with Jazz. That in the five years since Slade left, she could count less than a dozen times that she allowed Jazz into her bed. A dozen times too many, she readily admitted.

“Fool!” she snarled to herself, her fist beating on the bed as she gritted her teeth against the anger surging through her.

And why should she be angry? Why should she feel shame? Slade left her.

She bounded from the bed, pacing through the apartment as she let the anger rise. Better the anger than the arousal. She refused to feel arousal. Her fingers curled as she remembered the heat and hardness of his chest beneath her palms, remembered the way he stared at her, eating her with his eyes even as they swirled with rage. But even worse, she remembered her response to it. Lightning hot, surging through her bloodstream, awakening a hunger inside her she hadn't known since he had last touched her.

And she hated it.

A strangled scream of fury left her throat.

“You son of a bitch,” she snarled. “Bastard. Unconscionable, whoreson, asshole…”

“Your language has definitely gone downhill. Jazz hasn't been a good influence on you.”

She jerked around, staring at the opened balcony screen, her heart racing. Slade stood there, large as life, leaning against the doorframe as he watched her.

“Did you kill him?” If he didn't, she would.

A mocking snort left his lips. “He's not worth killing. I think you might have weakened his mind though. All those damned maybes were getting on my nerves.”

“Why are you here?” She suddenly felt less than comfortable as she jerked her robe from a chair and tied it firmly.

He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, his expression shadowed, his eyes pinpoints of hungry lust. She could feel it in the air around her, swirling, shimmering between them. Her breasts tightened as she watched him, her nipples pressing against the robe. The waxed folds of her pussy began to dampen with a layer of her juices.

He glanced at the bed.

“Do you want to take this to the living room, Jessie? Or do we do it here?”

She swallowed tightly.

“I can tell you what a bastard you are just as easy here as I can anywhere else, Slade.” She smiled with sharp mockery, pretending her body wasn't screaming out for his touch.

“If you can do it while my dick is slamming into that tight little pussy, you go for it.” He shrugged as though it didn't matter. “But it will be. And you will be screaming. It's up to you.”

She felt a sizzling heat race over her scalp before spreading through her body. It struck her clit like a whip of lightning, sending a pulse of hard, aching need that almost took her breath.

“So confident,” she crooned mockingly, allowing her lips to lift in a sneer as she raked her gaze over him. She would not notice how damned good he looked. Snug jeans cupping an obvious arousal, a dark T-shirt stretched over his broad, muscular chest. His face was leaner, harder, his gaze not just hungry, but bordering on ravenous.

“Confident?” he mused, his brow arching as his gaze went over her again. “If that's how you want to see it. It doesn't really matter at this point. It's going to happen. Does it happen now or do we talk first?”

“It doesn't happen at all,” she snarled. “You left, Slade. Remember? I wasn't mature enough for you.” The wound that was her heart bled at the memory. “Do you remember any of that, Slade?” she threw back at him furiously, five years of pain and rage erupting inside her. “Do you remember how you did it? Do you remember how easily you did it? Guess what, stud, I didn't think much of the ‘dessert' you provided.”

His expression contorted for a second, a pain-filled grimace that smoothed out as quickly as it came.

Breathing roughly, she whirled away from him, trembling as she fought to hold back the surge of violence raging through her. She stalked through the living room and into the kitchen, fighting the shaking of her limbs, the hunger that seared her with impotent fury.

“I was wrong.”

For the second time that night she threw a glass. It shattered against the wall over his head as he ducked, moving quickly to the side while shards rained around him.

“It's too late,” she screamed, fists clenched at her side, five years of agony tearing through her as the cause of the loneliness, the aching cold that filled her, and the pain, stood before her unscathed.

“I won't accept that.” His voice was low, too controlled, too patient as he moved toward her.

“You don't have a choice.” Bitter laughter escaped her throat as she refused to retreat, standing before him, watching him, hating the arousal slicing through her, the pain tearing at her. “Are you going to rape me, Slade? Will you take something that hasn't been yours for five years now?”

“I'll make it up to you, Jessie.” His voice throbbed with dark need.

“Will you, Slade?” She stared up at him, the fury and violence that ate at her tearing her apart. “Can you go back in time? Can you take away what you did? Can you make me fucking forget you married another woman and left with her no more than weeks after fucking my heart into the ground?”

“Jessie…”

“Guess what, stud?” Her laughter ripped from her chest. “I don't even fucking care now. You don't fucking matter. I haven't missed you in—”

Before she could evade him, he jerked her to him, his head lowering, his lips stilling the rage spewing from her even as it ignited five years of desperate need. His tongue plunged into her mouth as he dragged her into his chest, his head tilting, lips slanting over hers, eating at her lips. A hoarse moan ripped from her throat at the pleasure exploding through her. Her hands flew to his shoulders, nails biting deep as his hunger, his lust, began to fuel hers.

His lips nipped at hers to force them open, his tongue plunging inside again as one hand threaded through her hair, gripped the thick strands and pulled her head back sharply.

Deeper, remorseless, the ravishment of her mouth swept through her senses as they both seemed to feed to the other the lost dreams, the hunger, the aching emptiness of the years past. A burning brand of heat raced through her as she fought to get closer, battled to purge the bond that held her within the grip of one weekend's worth of memories. One man's touch. This man's hunger.

“Did Jazz please you, baby girl?” He tore his lips from hers, his voice graveled, assured. “Did you come with him until you begged him to make it stop? Did he make you hotter every time he touched you?”

The fingers in her hair held her head in place as his lips drew back from his teeth, the primal snarl on his face almost terrifying to behold.

“No…” she snapped back, hating the satisfaction that filled him. “He did it right the first time.”

He threw her away from him, barely catching her as she stumbled over a kitchen chair, righting her before he stalked to the other side of the room, his breathing harsh, fury radiating from the tenseness of his body as he kept his back to her.

“You're going to cause me to kill a man,” he snarled. “One I grew up with, trusted with my life.” He swung back to her, spearing her with the livid depths of his eyes. “Don't do that, baby…”

“Don't call me that,” she bit out, her voice rough. “I'm not your baby, I'm not your anything. Not yours and not Jazz's. The two of you can fuck each other for all I care.”

“I like your ass better,” he growled. “Now is the wrong time to lie to me, Jessie. Hate me if you have to, curse me if you need to, but don't fucking lie to me about this.”

“You have no right to demand anything,” she yelled back, her heart pounding, her pussy weeping. She hated him. Hated everything he had done to her, made her feel, everything she couldn't forget. She hated him. Just as fiercely as she hungered for him.

“Get out.” She was crying. She could feel the tears washing down her cheeks now, and had another reason to hate. “You didn't want me then, and I don't want you now.”

“Liar.” There was no heat in his voice, no anger. “I hurt you. God knows I've paid for it a million times over in the last five years. I lied to you and I left you. And I have no right to be here. I know all that, Jessie. But it won't change the fact that I am back, and I won't let you go. Not now. Not ever again.”

“And nothing will change the fact that I don't want you here. Clean the wax out of your ears, hillbilly. Fuck off.”

His lips quirked in amusement. “I missed you, Jessie.”

“I never thought of you once.” She waved her hand dismissively, fighting the weakness filling her, the need to touch him, to be touched by him.

“Not even once?” He sighed, looking around the apartment. “That explains why you bought my camper. Why you sleep in my bed, here. Why not so much as a thread of the carpet has changed in five years. Do you dream of me, Jessie? Like I dreamed of you? Hot, deep, filling every particle of your soul until you awake drenched in sweat, aching for release?”

“And you had release, didn't you, Slade?” She couldn't forget that. Could never forget it. “Amy was there—”

“Amy is something we have to talk about,” he gritted out, a grimace twisting his face. “God knows we have to. I need to explain—”

“Why should you?” The shudders were ripping through her body. She didn't want to hear explanations. She didn't want to know what made Amy the better woman. She knew the other woman had walked away with the man who held her soul. What else mattered? “Why the fuck should you care, Slade? I wasn't mature enough—”

“Don't.” He shook his head, staring back at her fiercely before raking his fingers over his shortened hair. He hunched his shoulders in weariness.

“Don't what? Remind you of what you said? What you did?” She shook her head, exhausted. “You're right, what's the point? It didn't matter to you then, and it doesn't matter to me now.”

She turned, walking away from him, fighting years of wasted dreams and a need she couldn't destroy. She was worse than a junkie. There had been nights, just as he said, she awoke sweating, crying, reaching for him. Needing her fix.

“Take Jazz to your bed again and I'll kill him,” he said as he moved to the front door, his eyes blazing at her in the dim light of the living room. “Don't test me on this, Jessie.”

“Maybe I love Jazz now, Slade,” she shot back. “Five years is a long time. Maybe it's time to let the past go.”

He turned, a slow lethal move that had her tensing warily.

“Don't start with the damned maybes, I've had enough from that grinning loon out at the lake. And stay away from him, Jessie. I'll kill him. I'll kill any man who touches you now. Remember that.”

The door jerked open, only to slam behind him a second later, leaving her to stare at his back incredulously. She had no doubt he meant every word of it.

Chapter Eleven

 

Slade didn't leave. He moved into the apartment next to her, sliding open the bedroom window, knowing any sound that came from the opposite room next to his own balcony would be clearly heard. He couldn't leave her. He couldn't walk away.

He sat in the chair beside his own sliding door, staring at his hands as he listened to her rage, listened to her cry. She ripped his heart out a thousand times over with her vows that she didn't fucking care, then gave him hope each time he heard the aching hunger in her voice when she cried his name.

The offices of Rigor Construction were set outside town, the large building holding three apartments, one downstairs and two upstairs. Zack, like Slade, had built his own home even further from town, leaving the upstairs rooms free. There were no neighbors here, no reason for anyone to stand near, to hear Jessie's agonized voice screaming out at him. He couldn't have stood that. Couldn't have stood for anyone else to hear her pain, to know his own.

He had left her five years before, the threat of the danger he could bring to her too overwhelming. And the operation had been left uncompleted. It was his responsibility. He had signed on. And God only knew the regret that had eaten him alive for five long years.

The wedding had gotten him in place with Kingston and Baines, then Amy had taken it a step further. She had gotten pregnant. One of the few nights he had shared her bed, and she had been waiting on him. The child had been no more to her than a ticket to push Slade deeper into the organization they were mired within. But the proof had come in. He had collected the evidence, had worked steadily to take down the men he called friends, and to keep a handle on a wife determined to get them all killed.

He had believed Cody was his child, that he knew Amy well enough to be able to trust her. He hadn't realized how deeply involved she had become with the organization, or how it would threaten his life, and the child he claimed as his own.